'Over the Hills and Far Away': a pleasing re-telling of the life of Beatrix Potter

Nearly 75 years after Potter's passing, she still is one of the most famous children’s writers in the world.

Over the Hills and Far Away: The Life of Beatrix Potter By Matthew Dennison Pegasus Books 272 pp.

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Beatrix Potter who lived in a big house in a big city.  Most days she played by herself in her third-floor nursery.

She didn’t like the city; she loved the country.   And she loved animals.  So she smuggled many different creatures – rabbits, mice, hedgehogs, snails, even lizards – into her tiny world. 

As she grew older, Beatrix got better and better at drawing animals and nature.  When she was a young woman she started adding stories to her illustrations, making them into books. 

British author Matthew Dennison is the latest to turn the story of Beatrix Potter herself into a book: Over the Hills and Far Away: The Life of Beatrix Potter.  Indeed, Ms. Potter’s extraordinary life makes for an absorbing tale.

Nearly 75 years after her passing, she still is one of the most famous children’s writers in the world. Millions of copies of her 23 books have been sold – in many languages. 

Potter’s parents were wealthy Londoners who kept their daughter on a short leash well into adulthood.  “The Potters’ world was one of conformities and prohibitions,” Mr. Dennison says.  

But Potter, with the help for a while of her younger brother, turned the children’s area of their Kensington home into a place to enjoy, study, and draw wildlife.  The Potters also took long vacations in the country.

In 1901, when Potter was 35, she self-published "The Tale of Peter Rabbit."  She’d attempted to interest various publishers in this now world-famous tale – including Frederick Warne & Co., which finally published "Peter Rabbit "the following year.  Soon, she was a best-selling author.

Dennison ably tells about Potter’s cloistered childhood; about her determination to get published, and about her marriage to an attorney.  Moreover, he tells about her years of success.  Readers feel her passion for England’s beautiful Lake District, which became her home.  They understand why she ended up buying large tracts of land, and farms, protecting this for England’s National Trust.

Potter won her popularity by involving readers in the dilemmas of her characters using simple, almost poetic words:  In Peter Rabbit’s case, he must escape from the garden of Mr. McGregor.  Peter Rabbit’s mother already has warned him:  “‘Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.’”

Here is a description from "The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher":  “Mr. Jeremy Fisher ... lived in a little damp house amongst the buttercups at the edge of a pond.”  Jeremy Fisher, a frog, almost gets eaten by trout.

In "The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse" she tells the story of Johnny and his visitor from the country, Timmy Willie.  Timmy Willie fell asleep in a hamper of food and was dropped off in the city.  Potter writes:  “One place suits one person, another place suits another person.  For my part I prefer to live in the country, like Timmy Willie.”

Meanwhile, Potter’s illustrations – beautiful, quiet pictures depicting animal characters in people clothes – enthrall her readers.  They are super-realistic, but also whimsical and almost dreamlike.

There is much to like about Dennison’s version of Potter’s life.  Dennison’s text is filled with telling observations.  This is Dennison’s description of Potter in her 40s:  “Her hair inclined to unruliness; she dressed as simply as prevailing fashions allowed ... in clothes that were practical to the point of shapelessness.”

Meanwhile, Dennison skillfully weaves Beatrix’s stories into every part of her narrative.  He describes a happy holiday this way: “Brother and sister revelled in a natural paradise, as companionable as Timmy and Goody Tiptoes in the nut thicket in "The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes.”

But Dennison could have benefitted from following Potter’s example of straightforward storytelling.  His narrative sometimes is distractingly non-linear.  This can facilitate a theme – as it does in many instances here.  But it also can prevent the reader from gaining traction in understanding periods in Beatrix’s life.

The effect also can be frustrating.  Readers familiar with major events in Beatrix’s life find their anticipation as to, for example, the publication of "Peter Rabbit," rewarded with backslides into earlier periods in her life.

Dennison, however, rectifies this with earnest descriptions, including his stunningly evocative paragraphs about the final chapter of Potter’s life.  At the end he describes the view today from the sitting room of her Hill Top home, now a museum in Cumbria County, in a way Potter would have loved:  [I]t stretches ... past stone cottages and snaking lanes to ... the blue slopes of mountains and the distant glimmer of sunlight on lake water, over the hills and far away."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to 'Over the Hills and Far Away': a pleasing re-telling of the life of Beatrix Potter
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2017/0405/Over-the-Hills-and-Far-Away-a-pleasing-re-telling-of-the-life-of-Beatrix-Potter
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe